


Living

by L56895



Series: Kinktober [6]
Category: Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Angry Sex, Blood and Gore, F/M, Hate Sex, Hints Of Blood/Gore, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 20:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L56895/pseuds/L56895
Summary: After she saves his life, Paine meets Nooj alone.





	Living

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote two fics for this pairing that kind of follow on from one another. Annoyingly this prompt came first, so there will be a prequel of sorts on day 11!

The four of them made their way silently back to the desert encampment. No one had spoken since Nooj’s outburst, his failed suicide attempt at the hands of a sand fiend. Paine had shouldered her sphere camera soon after; the Maesters would have no interest in the brooding personal dramas of three candidates, and with the approaching sandstorm visibility was poor. She watched Nooj carefully as he walked ahead; his gait was painfully stilted and his shirt was ripped at the back, revealing an open gash. Neither she, nor Gippal and Baralai, had fared much better in the crossfire between recruits, but nothing that could not be solved by a quick visit to the healers’ tent. In Nooj’s current state of mind there was no way that he would seek a medic and she wondered if their friendship had been damaged so irreparably that he would turn away her help too.

Regardless, she knew that she would risk his rage to find out.

The camp was filling up, candidates that had fared far worse than her friends, somehow, as if what had happened to them today wasn’t the worst thing imaginable. She followed the line of broken bodies towards the mess tent, found Gippal and Baralai eating in silence.

“Where’s Nooj?”

Gippal looked at her sadly, “I don’t think he wants to talk to us right now, Dr P. You look beat, we got you a bowl.”

But Paine was already shaking her head and backing away. Nooj. Alone after today. She turned on her heels and marched out of the tent.

Purposeful strides took her further away from the fire and the bustle of soldiers until the sound of voices was replaced by the harsh whirl of desert winds. A little way to the left of the camp she found him, propped up against a collection of large rocks, brooding. He had spotted her before she noticed him and was watching her, his expression unreadable.

“I brought you this,” she held out the potion to him, kept her body at a safe distance from his. Something about his current state screamed danger if she got too close; not that he would hurt her, but that she was on the precipice of something painful. She never had managed to untangle how she felt about him. “Your back looks painful.”

“Nothing I haven’t felt before,” he turned his head away from her, looked out across the quiet desert, “Leave me. You have no right to be here.”

The desert wind was cool against her skin, almost chilling, and for a moment she considered turning from him and settling back in to the warm mess tent with Baralai and Gippal. They were uncomplicated in their feelings, safer, friends without the threat of something more creeping in on them. Instead she stood rooted to the spot, hand outstretched, and waited. Eventually, he turned back and met her eye; the full force of his sorrow and rage pushing back against her desire to help him.

“You shouldn’t-” his voice, usually so strong and sure, broke and she dropped the potion in her haste to get close to him. Up close, his face was a mixture of anguish and anger and she suppressed the voice that told her that coming to him was a mistake, that a man who desired death might be a threat to the one who denied him that pleasure. Still, she stood tall before him, chin straight, defiant, even though she barely reached his eye level when he was sat down. Pushing himself off of the rock he grabbed her roughly by the arms and twisted her round until her back pressed in to the rock face and his body was flush against hers. His hand snaked up to grip her throat, eyes flashing with rage behind his glasses. They stayed like that for a long moment; Nooj’s mouth twisted in rage and Paine’s hands grasping at his wrists.

“You should have let me die,” he snarled, his hand tightening around her throat. It occurred to her that if he had used his machina hand he may have crushed her. Snapped her neck beneath unfeeling fingers. She wondered if he would be grateful; his last painful, unwanted tie to this world extinguished.

“I can’t,” she gasped, struggling for breath, “Hate me, but I can’t.” His grip loosened, the twist in his mouth slipped away. She gasped again when he kissed her, his mouth hard against hers. Kissing him felt achingly right, real in the face of the hazy nightmare that the day had become.

His hips pinned her against the rock, his left hand squeezing her buttock to keep her up. Her shorts were loose, he’d somehow worked the strappings free one handed- how long had he practised that in his mind?- and she reached between them to find the fastenings to his breeches. He was already clumsily untying them and shifted to give her access, plunging his fingers between her legs while she groped at his clothing.

He paused before entering her, one hand hooked around her thigh, pulling her legs apart. For a moment she felt he might turn her away, abandon her to the chill of the desert, but then he dipped his face to part her lips and pushed in to her. She cried out against his mouth and he moaned, bit her lip, drove his hips in to hers. The rough stone cut in to her skin, causing tears to sting her eyes, and she gripped his back, felt the sticky blood there from his daytime injuries. With a strangled roar, he slammed her against the rock and the world span. Her head lolled to the side and he trailed his lips down the exposed skin of her neck.

She hadn’t expected him to be gentle, in those quiet moments where she imagined them coming together after weeks of dancing around their feelings, but his roughness still shocked her. His fingers dug in to muscle, his teeth bit in to her neck and he made an almost animalistic growl in the back of his throat as he got closer to his release. When he came he backed them away from the wall of rock, propped himself up in his former position and cradled her in his lap as he shuddered beneath her. She buried her hands in his hair and kissed him as he panted, arms braced around her back, then pressed his face in to her neck.

The chill returned.


End file.
